Issue 31 | The Sun Magazine

October 1977

Quotations

Sunbeams

You have everything in you that Buddha has, that Christ has, you’ve got it all. But only when you start to acknowledge it is it going to get interesting. Your problem is you’re afraid to acknowledge your own beauty. You’re too busy holding on to your own unworthiness. You’d rather be a schnook sitting before some great man. That fits in more with who you think you are. Well, enough already. I sit before you and I look and I see your beauty, even if you don’t.

Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill

Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

The Man Between

Hunched over the typewriter, one eye on the clock, I’m eternal, and I’m sweating it out. Then space opens its fist, I’m neither in nor out, not who I imagine, yet imagined by my Self. The hum of things continues. I’m the kiss of life — if only for this moment, to this moment I’ll cling.

By Sy Safransky
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Will An Apple Turnover A Day Keep The Doctor Away?

Initial decisions about what we will eat are made by the supermarket chains when they divvy up their shelf space. And these decisions are based on different values than we would apply. More often than not, the result is one row of fresh fruits and vegetables and ten or twelve rows of boxes and cans.

By Cary Fowler
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Immodest Proposal

In the future “work” as is now known will exist for only a few technicians. Most citizens will be supported by a welfare state which is fully automated. This will be achieved in each home by a device that looks much like an electric chair.

By C.A. Taormina
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Teilhard

Book Review

In this lucid if somewhat topical treatment of the life of Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), Mary and Ellen Lukas have revealed an old truth: human consciousness is not easily changed but must be challenged by advanced thinkers whose lives are filled with trial, test, and controversy.

By Richard Williams
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Loose Change

Book Review

What perhaps saves the book, makes the bulk of it interesting and entertaining, if not profound, is Davidson’s remarkable honesty. She does not flinch from the most embarrassing and painful details, even in her own life.

By David M. Guy
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Journal

Sitting on the backsteps, the wind whipping against my bare skin. I am surprised, again, by the night and the way it makes me feel a part of the silver silence cleaning up the day’s details of heat and activity.

By Betsy Campbell Blackwell
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Yanceyville

Yanceyville is a quiet town of 1,300. The tobacco barns give out just before the new high school and junior high; from the schools you can see the courthouse at the center of town.

By Barry Jacobs
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Nuclear Energy: Our Faustian Bargain?

Governor Meldrin Thomson flew in in his helicopter. He’d originally teamed up with the Public Service Company of New Hampshire to push the twin 1150 megawatt set of nuclear power plants, among the biggest ever built, on New Hampshire’s coast, all 18 miles of it. Seabrook got selected without knowing it.

By Karl Grossman
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Bringing Black Holes To Light

Hawking takes on Einstein directly: “It therefore seems that Einstein was doubly wrong when he said ‘God does not play dice.’ Consideration of particle emission from black holes would seem to suggest that God not only plays dice but sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.” Where they can’t be seen is black holes, where singularities dwell.

By David Searls
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

A Secret Garden

Vegetable or plant dyeing is an art which belongs to the botanist and gardener as well as the spinner, weaver, and leather craftsman. A knowledge of field botany can help the dyer identify many useful dyeplants which grow in the countryside.

By Lucia Peck
Fiction

Paul And The Finger And Steely Dan

He was no one you’d pause to stare at; it was what he said that belied his craziness. Ask him any question; he would answer it as perversely as possible, every time. “Paul, what’s it like outside?” “It’s a perfect day for a rape.” “Paul, what’s for dinner?” “Children’s genitalia, in red clam sauce.”

By Richard Gess
Photography

Cartoons By David Terrenoire

The cartoons in this selection are available as a PDF only. Click here to download.

By David Terrenoire
Photography

Photographs By Gary Thaxton And Enrique Vega

Gary and Enrique will be exhibiting a two-artist show at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts (SECCA), 750 Marguerite Drive, Winston-Salem, through October 28.

By Gary Thaxton & Enrique Vega
Photography

Photograph By Ron Howard

The photograph in this selection is available as a PDF only. Click here to download.

By Ron Howard